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Opal Spire
Far north of Whitewall, north of the White Sea, north and west even of the farthest flung cities known in the Age of Sorrows, lie the ruins of a vast Old Realm city. Half of this enormous city remains intact beneath 700 years of accumulated snow and ice, while the other half has been consumed — or catastrophically changed — by the Wyld bordermarch that marks the terminus of Creation. In the First Age, the name of this city was Opal Spire — and those capable of reading Old Realm will be able to surmise that much with only a little effort. At the very dawn of the First Age, immediately after the fall of the Primordials, Opal Spire was a terraforming outpost at the northern edge of Creation, the point from which artifact ships launched themselves into the Wyld to solidify the chaos and expand the world. Centuries later, when hundreds of miles of new land had been annexed to Creation and the Pole of Air and Creation’s edge had been pushed far to the north, Opal Spire was no longer the most efficient launch point for such operations in the Wyld. However, Opal Spire continued to be a powerfulnode in the integrated military force of the First Age. The city remained networked to the Realm’s defense grid, and its enormous skyports and harbor were ready at a moment’s notice to engage the Yozis or any other foe of the gods or Exalted. The city’s vast war libraries contain more knowledge on the Primordials and the world of the First Age than any war libraries now extant, and, unlike any library elsewhere in Creation, none of the crystal codices of the Opal Spire library have been censored or touched in any way by Shogunate forces. Were the sorcerers of the Heptagram or Lookshy to learn of the existence of Opal Spire, they would spare no expense to plunder its secrets — and they would probably fall before its terrible guardian. Older Sidereals know about Opal Spire. They may remember its libraries, its beautiful ports — or its terrifying last night. Those who know how the city met its end may also remember the horror that laid the city low, and they will likely believe that the incredible risks associated with entering the city far outweigh any good that might come from plundering Opal Spire. If the old city’s dread destroyer, the behemoth/demon known as Vorvin-Derlin, Slayer of Armies, ever becomes active again and enters more populated regions of Creation, precious few forces could stop the demon. One phrase is uttered more often than any other when the Sidereals speak of Opal Spire: “What is forgotten is best left forgotten.” Unlike any other known First Age city, Opal Spire never experienced the slow deterioration of the Shogunate. Opal Spire’s history came to an end on the night of the Usurpation when a Solar sorcerer unleashed something far larger than the Dragon-Blooded or their Sidereal masters could handle. The city, a vast trove of First Age knowledge and artifacts, was evacuated on the night the Solars were systematically assassinated. Had the Shogunate’s government ever been able to address the difficulties of the deteriorating First Age, perhaps Opal Spire would have been a destination for enormous war parties and then, perhaps, archeologists. As it was, active attention to the city and the horror that lurked there was postponed indefinitely while more pressing matters were attended to, and with thecoming of the Great Contagion, Opal Spire was forgotten entirely as the edges of Creation collapsed back, leaving the proud, ancient city slumbering under its hoar blanket. Opal Spire is now effectively synonymous with the Elemental Pole of Air. Creation goes no further north from here. The bordermarches of the Wyld begin almost at the old city’s heart, and Creation itself fades away as one goes north. Only the southern half of the city remains intact. Anything north of that has been changed by centuries of Wyld corruption so as to be unrecognizable, although certain artifacts created from the Five Magical Materials have remained largely unchanged. This far north, the frozen fog does not creep or even roil. It lunges from place to place on violent, howling gusts. The snow and winds blast across the land with the force of an explosion. Sudden updrafts can instantly pluck a man from the surface, blow him hundreds of feet into the air and then, like a bored child, drop him. Those without powerful protective magic to defend them from the elements (e.g., Hardship-Surviving Mendicant Spirit or its equivalent) had best not even cross the White Sea, much less come to this most northerly point in Creation. The average temperature, in the absence of the frozen fog (which makes it colder), is -80° Fahrenheit (-65° Celsius). At such low temperatures, spit freezes solid before it can hit the ground, and all exposed skin suffers from frostbite within a few seconds. Without Essence-enhanced outerwear or many, many layers of high-quality mundane furs, an individual will take environmental damage every turn as if trapped in a supernatural ice storm (see Exalted, page 244). At Opal Spire’s peak in the First Age, the city was one of the largest of the Old Realm’s vast cities with a population of nearly six million. In the Second Age, it is the biggest, coldest ghost town in Creation. In the First Age, Opal Spire’s climate was very like that of Whitewall now. The skyport was on the northern edge of the city and now lost, the harbor was on the city’s southern edge; while most of the ancient ships were taken in the evacuation of the city, two remain. THE HARBOR Now frozen over, Opal Spire’s harbor was one of the largest of the First Age. Over two miles in diameter, the harbor accommodate even the largest First Age ships. In the center of the harbor is an island with a 40-foot-tall gold statue of the Unconquered Sun in all his glory, staring off toward the west. In the intense cold, the harbor is covered with snow as thick as any other part of the city. Nothing breaks the smooth expanse of drifted snow. Beneath the ice, however, are the hulks of two First Age vessels, one flooded and beyond repair, the other watertight and waiting for a Solar captain. A STALKER IN THE DRIFTS Asleep in its icy tomb in the abandoned city lies a creature that has slain entire armies and waits only to be awakened from its slumber. VORVIN-DERLIN, SLAYER OF ARMIES Description: Vorvin-Derlin manifests in Creation as a hollow humanoid cage of tarnished brass filigree. Its metal form extrudes and retracts razor-sharp barbs from every surface like the palpi of an insect with the rhythms of a beating heart. The creature’s hollow form moves in rhythmic, sinewy, almost hypnotic, undulation, and the pattern of its barbed filigree shifts constantly. Although the behemoth can sculpt its protean form into a rough semblance of a humanoid body at will, the behemoth prefers to envelop a living host that it can use as a skeleton and a defense. While riding a host, Vorvin-Derlin looks like a cartilaginous brass exoskeleton constantly shifting the alignment of its barbed filigree segments. Baleful red flames smolder over the gouged abscesses of the vessel’s eyes, their brightness proportional to the behemoth’s anger. Wherever the behemoth goes in Creation, a fine patina of verdigris forms over every non-magical metal object within a mile. Isidiros, the Black Boar That Twists the Skies, forged Vorvin-Derlin from severed clippings of his own immortal sinews and clotted veins in the primeval epoch of the world. The behemoth served its master as a policing weapon, designed to grow in accordance with the forces massed against it. The greater the army, the more surely Vorvin-Derlin would massacre it. In times of peace, the behemoth shriveled away in boredom until the bellow of Isidiros awoke its wrath anew. During the Primordial War, Vorvin-Derlin fought savagely against the Exalted, but their singular might overwhelmed its strength as numbers alone could not. Time and again, the Chosen slew the behemoth, but its spilt blood sucked ore from the land like marrow and restored the behemoth to life. By the terms of Isidiros’ exile within Malfeas, the Chosen demanded that Vorvin-Derlin follow its master into banishment, returning as if it were a Demon of the Second Circle to obey the Solar Exalted. During the First Age, the sorcerer Oa-Té developed an Adamant Circle spell that allowed him to summon Vorvin-Derlin, bind it and then fuse it with his body for the span of a month. When the Usurpation came, the sorcerer brought forth the behemoth to enact this fusion, but the Dragon-Blooded and their retinues broke into the sorcerer’s sanctum and interrupted the ritual. Drawing strength from the unbound behemoth’s adversaries, it decimated the Dragon-Blooded, slew the weakened Oa-Té and necessitated the evacuation and abandonment of Opal Spire. Starved of battle as the rebellion raged elsewhere in Creation, Vorvin-Derlin lingered in the ruins of Opal Spire, waiting for the commands of Isidiros or the challenge of adversaries to give its existence power and purpose once more. It has waited ever since, lost when the borders of Creation collapsed back to their original size and buried the city in glacial cold. Vorvin-Derlin’s Valor is effectively perfect; the behemoth cannot ever fail Valor rolls, regardless of the difficulty. It often increases Traits marked with an asterisk by fusing with a host and can increase its Physical Attributes through the unique Charm Might of the Slaughterer, requiring recalculation of derived statistics such as Dodge Pool and Initiative. Anyone striking the behemoth barehanded suffers 6L damage from the razor edges of its jagged body. As a behemoth, Vorvin-Derlin possesses immortality on the scale of the Primordials and rises anew from any demise after a period of quiescence lasting one year. The behemoth has a unique set of circumstances that can rip its soul into the Underworld as a hekatonkhire, but these are unknown and left to the StorytellerStoryteller to devise. The creature also heals preternaturally fast, mending one level of bashing damage every turn, one level of lethal damage every minute and one level of aggravated damage every day. The behemoth has perfect immunity to all disease and resists poison like an Exalt. Vorvin-Derlin is considered a Second Circle demon for the purposes of summoning, binding or banishing it through sorcery but not for any other purpose. The behemoth is a creature of darkness for purposes of magic.